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So I'm writing this post after I came back from a get-together with some family friends. One of them is a staunch libfem who has a 9 year old son who she never misses an opportunity to brag about how shes raising him to be a "male feminist"
At the party, she was proudly telling everybody about how she makes him take ballet along with a bunch of other stereotypically feminine extracurriculars in order to teach him the importance of subverting gender roles and not succumbing to Toxic Masculinity. Apparently she sometimes even sends him to school in a dress.
Now all of this would be fine and dandy if the kid actually enjoys this sort of stuff, but she was also bragging about what a great Feminist Mom she is for ignoring his protestations. Unsurprisingly the other boys at his school think he's a pansy. She's always getting calls from the principal about how her kid keeps getting into fights. Meanwhile, the boys who aren't mercilessly teasing him for being gay, won't even acknowledge his existence. They wont even sit at a table hes sitting at, and one of his classmates, when asked how many other boys are in his class straight up refuses to count her son among them. Apparently her son hates that even more than the bullying because he keeps coming home in tears every time he's deliberately ignored.
My friend claims all this is going to make her son "more empathetic" towards women and girls.
And all this to say, for anyone on here on FDS with a male child, please please please don't be like my friend and force your son to be stereotypically feminine unless it's something he naturally gravitates towards. It's only going to result in one of two things and neither one of them involves Junior respecting women. In fact, forcing femininity onto him will make him even LESS likely to respect women.
He begins to view girls as a scapegoat for the harassment he faces from his peers and starts to resent them for it. After all, it's girls who he's constantly being compared to when other boys are deriding him for being a pussy. If femininity wasn't associated with girls, he could surely practice it in peace without losing the respect of the boys!
He tries to appeal to the sexist boys whose approval he so desperately craves by becoming even more sexist than them in order to compensate for his lack of stereotypical masculinity. Furthermore, misogyny allows him to self-soothe under the delusion that no matter how much of an embarrassment he is in the eyes of his fellow men, at least he's still inherently superior to 50% of the population by virtue of BEING one at all.
So in conclusion, if you really want to teach your son the importance of subverting gender roles, how about instead you start with teaching him to clean his room and do the dishes?
Child abuse.
Christ almighty, this is just a recipe for disaster. This poor boy is definitely going to hate his mothers' guts and become a hardcore misogynist when he grows up, if not worse. I'm calling it. This is straight up child abuse
I had a classmate when I was little that was the other extreme:
Her mother didn't allow her to have long hair, wear girly clothes, own girly toys (like dolls etc.) or do girly hobbies and she would get really mad if the girl expressed any interest in any of that. I distinctly remember the mother saying "you don't want to end up a stupid Barbie like those girls, do you" when she wanted to join a dance group the school had.
I don't know if it was some kind of misunderstood feminism by her mother (aka "everything stereotypically girly is evil") or if that woman actually wanted a boy and tried to turn her daughter into one. There is a difference between encouraging your daughter to look beyond stereotypically girly things and try new stuff and painting everything girly as dumb.
When people (such as this monster of a mother) have no real problems in life, they make up their own problems.
Where is the father? I can only assume he's been out of the picture and will only add to this kid's trauma
This is horrifying. If anything, she is going to increase the risk of him developing a misogynistic attitude as he grows resentful of her as he gets older. His primary female role model is projecting onto him, pigeonholing him, and not nurturing or supporting his individuality.
He is undoubtedly going to view all women through this lens eventually (on a subconscious level) until he either unlearns the problem core beliefs/behaviours he inevitably develops, or other support persons intervene.
I say this as a woman aligned with radical feminist ideology: there is absolutely nothing wrong with men developing a healthy and positive sense of their masculinity. I actively encourage men to cultivate healthy masculinity. It’s literally my job.
This approach she is taking is the opposite extreme of the “boys will be boys” attitude; not allowing males to express themselves at all. It is just as bad as letting males run amok, behaviour left unchecked.
Wowwwwwww, good one, mom! She's raising a future serial killer. This woman is unhinged, hates her child, and should not be raising a child.
I'm sorry but if that woman thinks that forcing her son to do traditionally feminine activities is going to make him a feminist then she's an idiot!
Give them option. My eldest loves dolls, and is generally nicer to the girls he plays with than most boys are.
The idea that pink=girl, blue=boy is actually a new concept. In the old days, it was flipped.